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Variety is the key

An interesting article in the New York Times on the conventional wisdom about study habits and what really works.

Every September, millions of parents try a kind of psychological witchcraft, to transform their summer-glazed campers into fall students, their video-bugs into bookworms. Advice is cheap and all too familiar: Clear a quiet work space. Stick to a homework schedule. Set goals. Set boundaries. Do not bribe (except in emergencies).

And check out the classroom. Does Junior’s learning style match the new teacher’s approach? Or the school’s philosophy? Maybe the child isn’t “a good fit” for the school.

Such theories have developed in part because of sketchy education research that doesn’t offer clear guidance. Student traits and teaching styles surely interact; so do personalities and at-home rules. The trouble is, no one can predict how.

Yet there are effective approaches to learning, at least for those who are motivated. In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying.

The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.

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2 responses to “Variety is the key”

  1. Dean C. Rowan

    This article is interesting in more ways than one. For one, it never mentions a concrete instance of the common wisdom the cited research corrects, such as a particular study skills program. Instead, it makes generic references to “millions of parents,” “unexamined beliefs,” “the notion that children have specific learning styles,” “hallowed advice on study habits,” “the common assumption,” etc. We readers are expected to nod in agreement with the premise–we are the “you” in the headline, after all–and get on to the news. But the news, it turns out, isn’t news: “‘We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,’ said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.” The story is reporting two phenomena: the advances being made by the research reported by the article, but also the persistent failure of “millions of parents” and teachers to learn from that research and the principles of which we’ve long been aware. I wonder. I recall the bar exam preparation coaches providing advice very similar to some of the methods touted in the article. “An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall, without requiring students to put in more overall study effort or pay more attention, dozens of studies have found.” In certain respects, bar prep is not a fair comparison. The goal there is to take and pass the test, not to learn the content, a critical distinction for liminal lawyers who just want to retain their jobs.
    I’m not challenging the research–as usual, I have no basis for doing so–but I take issue with the journalism. The suggestion seems to be that the former “good study habits” were peddled as necessary, sufficient, and exclusive avenues to learning. “[M]any study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work” (my emphasis). They insisted? Really?

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  2. narayan

    The subject of learning, as this article itself, is a minefield for me. Learning and reading to absorb material has always been difficult for me – who knew ADD, or anything else in the 50s? Psychological makeup, family circumstances, and aptitudes inborn and received are intimately bound up in what can be learned and how much retained. In childhood I was hopelessly lost in subjects that required memory, and excelled in those that were based on ‘first principles’. My parents actively participated in bridging the gap. In college I remember flunking a crucial test after which the teacher held up what little I had written as exemplary work. After high school, with no parental restraints, I just gave up and hoped that the system and my teachers could see through my deficiencies and discover my genius. Three tests administered to me in my 40s could not determine my aptitude for artistic versus analytical pursuits, and I formally became a fence-sitter. With all this, I just feel blessed that I survived and managed to give a good account of myself.
    In the end, beyond some vague body of acquired knowledge essential for negotiating the working life, learning seems to have little little correlation with objective success. Dumb kids become successful adults and smart kids get mired in life. Not being a parent myself, I cannot appreciate the fears of parents who see their children unable to jump through the requisite hoops. Perhaps some day our high school grades will be reassessed just before our first social security check is sent out.

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